retired to Westminster, kept a public house in Phænix Alley near Long
Acre, and continued constant in his loyalty to the King; after whose
death, he set up a sign over his door, of a mourning crown, but that
proving offensive, he pulled it down, and hung up his own picture[1],
under which were these words,

There's many a head stands for a sign,
Then gentle reader why not mine?

On the other side,

Tho' I deserve not, I desire
The laurel wreath, the poet's hire.

He died in the year 1654, aged 74, and was buried in the church yard
of St. Paul's Covent-Garden; his nephew, a Painter at Oxford, who
lived in Wood's time, informed him of this circumstance, who gave his
picture to the school gallery there, where it now hangs, shewing him
to have had a quick and smart countenance. The following epitaph was
written upon him,

Here lies the Water-poet, honest John,
Who row'd on the streams of Helicon;
Where having many rocks and dangers past,
He at the haven of Heaven arrived at last.

Footnote:
1. Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 393.

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